Page 1676 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 13 May 2015
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(2) calls on the Government to support ACTP to continue to be a well-resourced, highly trained and dedicated community policing organisation whose intelligence-led operation serves the Canberra community well.”.
Mr Hanson made mention of the PIN notice. There was a PIN notice provided in April 2013. The PIN was around evidence of operational capacity, but I am pleased to say that ACT Policing implemented immediate strategies, including the redeployment of the intelligence-led alcohol crime targeting team and the assignment of an AFP specialist response group to provide ongoing support to the city beats team until a permanent solution was implemented in September of that year.
Policing formally amalgamated the city beats and the alcohol and crime targeting team to form the regional targeting team. The regional targeting team consists of three sworn team leaders, 20 sworn team members and a dedicated intelligence officer. The minimum strength on night shift is one team leader and nine members. The PIN notice was not related to overall policing numbers, nor does it really have any relevance to the general saving measures; rather, it is related to operational decisions around a unit. Those have all been addressed with the new regional targeting team in place.
I would like also to acknowledge again the professional and robust relationship that the government, the Australian Federal Police and ACT Policing share, which results in high quality policing being provided to our community. The Australian National Audit Office noted in its 2012 audit in relation to the provision of policing services to the ACT by the AFP that the AFP’s relationship is mature and operating well.
Our government has committed more than $600 million over the four years from July 2014 for the provision of policing services. Our longstanding commitment to increasing the operational capacity of ACT Policing is demonstrated in the funding that we have provided for an additional 136 full-time equivalents over the period from 2005 to 2014. This has increased ACT Policing full-time equivalents from 796 to 932. ACT Policing’s budget has grown by approximately $88 million—a 130 per cent rise—in annual recurrent funding, from $64 million in 2000-01 to $152 million in the 2014 budget.
The 2014-15 budget also provided $450,000 over two financial years for the Gungahlin emergency service centre future use study, a further $232,000 of direct funding from JACS for crime prevention, and $246,000 for capital upgrades. In addition, over $5 million over four years was provided in the 2013-14 budget to expand ACT Policing’s road safety operations team. This additional funding assists in the prevention of fatalities and serious crashes on our roads.
There is no doubt that this continued investment clearly demonstrates our government’s commitment in providing a safe and secure community.
The 2013-14 budget introduced a range of savings measures across government which totalled $146 million over the four years. For the first time, as part of these savings, a general savings measure of one per cent was applied to the territory appropriation for
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